by Kennedy Ryan
“I could kiss you, Lo,” he rasps. “But I won’t.”
His words snap whatever thread linked us, and I step back, clearing my throat and fixing my face.
“Good,” I say, rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Because we did say a simple friendship, and that would complicate matters too much.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” he says.
“I don’t make deals with men I don’t know.” I even my voice out until it’s almost normal.
He pauses, a slight smile hitting his lips before he goes on. “Okay, I’ll make you a promise.”
“Promises mean nothing from men I don’t trust,” I say with a shrug. “And men I don’t know, I don’t trust.”
“Okay, I’ll make a prediction.” He lifts both brows and waits for my objection.
“Go on,” I say with a nod.
“I predict we will kiss again,” he says, and my wide eyes zip to his face. “But only when you want it. The next time we kiss, you’ll make it happen.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I retort with borrowed confidence.
“Mark my words, little millennial.”
“Lotus, you back here?” Chase calls from around the corner. He stops as soon as he sees me with Kenan, frowns, and runs a hand over the back of his neck. “JP’s looking for you.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say hastily, speed walking around him.
“I’m ready for you,” I hear Chase tell Kenan.
I’m glad one of us is.
JP has averted the crisis with the silk shipment and looks like a pleasant, reasonable man again. We’re talking through a few things we’ll probably work on when we get back to the office when Kenan walks in.
I chose well. The cool green pops against his skin. He’s the portrait of rugged, beautiful masculinity, but once the shoot actually starts, it looks like we caught him in the middle of a root canal. None of the coaxing, coaching, and cajoling Chase typically uses to get the best out of a subject is working on Kenan.
I roll my hips to the heavy beat pouring through the speakers and wonder if this will be a waste of time because the compelling force of Kenan’s personality doesn’t translate.
The beat.
It’s “Bad and Bouje” by Migos.
Mumble, mumble, mumble.
“Hey, JP,” I whisper. “What do you think?”
“It’s not . . . working,” he says, panic in his voice. “And I need to know we have someone locked down for this. He’s much stiffer than I thought he would be, but I still love those arms.”
“Mind if I try something that might help him relax a little?”
“Is it sex?” He widens his eyes and squeezes my hand reassuringly. “I’ll make everyone leave the room if you need privacy.”
“No, it’s not sex,” I say, trying to sound appropriately outraged instead of hella turned on. “Let me try something.”
“It can’t hurt,” JP says, watching as Kenan looks pained going through the poses and expressions Chase requests. I tiptoe over to the sound system and flip through what’s available until I find a song that might work.
At the first notes of “PYT,” the tension leaves Kenan’s shoulders. The longer the song goes, the better he looks, the easier it seems to come to him.
“You’re a miracle worker,” JP says, delight all over his face as he watches Kenan. “He looks great, doesn’t he?”
I hazard a glance at our subject, only to find him already watching me and smiling. I don’t read lips, so it takes me a little bit to decipher the message he mouths to me, but I finally get it.
“Thanks, PYT.”
8
Kenan
So this is an atelier.
I step off the elevator and into the small entrance of JPL Maison. Just past the lobby, I enter a beehive. Women—a dozen shapes, sizes, colors—swarm through an open space stuffed with sewing machines and tables sporting large blades. Some cut fabric with surgical precision. The space, with its sterile white walls and neutral floors, is punctuated with vibrant pops of color from fabric in all kinds of patterns and textures. A forest of those headless, armless mannequin things huddles at the far end of the room. Tall bolts of fabric are propped up against the walls and fill the corners. Shelves suspended overhead are crammed with containers of buttons, zippers, hooks, and all kinds of things I’ve never needed to know the names for.
It’s a beehive, and I’m looking for the queen.
“Kenan!” JP calls down from the floor above. “Up here!”
Found him.
The seamstresses’ stares make me feel like the last male on the planet, but I ignore the curious looks and take the stairs to the next floor where JP waits with a welcoming smile. His lips are coming at me, but I put up a hand.
“I don’t do air kisses, JP.”
“Oui, oui.” He laughs and waves me into a glass-walled conference room. “Come see the watches I have for you.”
Another man, I think the CEO, if I remember correctly, sits at the long slate table. He and the redhead from the party, Billie, have their heads together and are deep in what looks to be an intense conversation.
“Paul,” JP says, his eyes speculative on the couple. I assume they’re a couple. There’s something intimate about their interaction, but when Paul puts his hand forth to shake mine, I notice his wedding band. Billie’s not wearing one. He and Bridget might have a lot in common. A flush rises on Billie’s cheeks, and I remember seeing her with Lotus. They seemed friendly that night.
Lotus.
I promised myself if I didn’t run into her, I wouldn’t go looking, but once JP has shown me the prototypes he’d like me to wear during press conferences and other appearances, I know I’ll at least try to find her before I go.
When we’re done, JP and Paul remain in the conference room for their next meeting and ask Billie to walk me out.
“It’s Billie, right?” I ask, addressing her directly for the first time as we descend the iron stairwell.
“Uh, yeah.” She glances at me, her green eyes friendly, but guarded.
“We met at the yacht party.”
“I remember.” Her gaze narrows, sharpens. “That was some kiss.”
“It was,” I agree with a stiff smile. I swallow my pride and ask the question burning a hole in my tongue. “So is Lotus in today?”
“She’s working.” With twitching lips, she presses the iPad to her chest. “But I think she had some errands to run.”
Dammit. “I see.”
I feel like a teenage boy standing at a locker asking some girl’s friend if she likes me. I hadn’t thought about Lotus’s age until our conversation at the shoot. At twenty-five, I hadn’t even been in the league five years. I was a new dad, a new husband. I don’t even recognize that kid in myself anymore. I can’t find him. To think of all I experienced in eleven years—Lotus still has all of that ahead of her.
Something about the way Billie’s looking at me makes me wonder if Lotus has talked about us with her friends. Not that there’s much of an “us” to discuss yet, but I still feel a certain protectiveness of the friendship we’re cultivating. I don’t get a gossip vibe from Lotus. I can’t imagine her running to TMZ or selling her story to the tabloids, and there’s really nothing to tell yet, but Dr. Packer warned us to be careful how Simone finds out about romantic interests.
“I could tell her you stopped by,” Billie says, her voice almost conspiratorial, like we have a secret.
“Nah, but thanks.” I smooth my expression over and walk ahead of her. By necessity, I got really good at masking my emotions and shutting everyone out. Every day, some reporter was digging in my trash, literally and figuratively. I can’t have my life exposed that way again. I don’t think Lotus would share my personal details, but look how badly I misjudged Bridget.
I’m almost at the door when I run into Lotus’s other friend from the party, Yari.
“Hi,” she says. “How ya doing?”
“Fine.” I keep my voice curt. Not f
riendly.
“Were you looking for Lotus?” Her smile teases me, and again, I wonder if I’m the butt of some joke everyone knows but me.
“No, I had a meeting with JP.” I allow my irritation to show in my frown. “Gotta go.”
I stalk off to the lobby, but the damn elevator is taking forever. It’s one floor. There’s no way I’m standing here for another minute when I could have been down the steps and gone by now. I take the stairs, and I’m rounding the second curve of the staircase leading to the first floor when something heavy pounds me in the chest and knocks me back into the stairwell wall.
“Shit,” says a female voice, muffled behind a huge bolt of red fabric. “I’m so sorry.”
When she props the fabric up against the wall, I see the woman behind the voice.
“Lotus?” I ask, thrown not just by the blow to my midsection, but by the sight of her.
It’s boiling hot outside today, and the faintest sheen of sweat coats her top lip and the curves at her temples. Her T-shirt is cut to fall below her breasts. White linen shorts sit low on her hips, exposing the firm plane of her stomach and the feminine muscles etched under her skin. A lotus flower tattoo blossoms around her belly button. The shorts are so tiny, they barely hit the tops of her thighs. Ink peeks out from beneath the cuffs, but it’s mostly covered and I can’t make out what it is.
Desire hits me harder than that bolt of fabric to my belly. I wish I could figure out how to stop wanting her. She’s twenty-five years old. Too young for me. Too complicated. We said just friends, but I don’t know if I can do that. I want to fuck her every time we’re in the same room, and when we’re not together, I’m thinking about it. I know we need to keep this simple. That’s the smart thing to do, but I find myself not wanting to do the smart thing. I’ve been blind and stupid before. I can’t afford to do that again.
“Sorry about that,” she says, her smile open, sweet. “The elevator was taking too long, and I wanted to get this fabric up to the studio. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
I wonder what’s behind the pretty face. I don’t want to question her honesty, her forthrightness, but I’ve been duped before. I gave a woman my trust and she turned it on me like a loaded gun.
I don’t return Lotus’s smile, unsure if I should take steps back, or move forward because either way, there may be something to lose. Her infectious grin disintegrates. Her mouth flattens into the line I saw before we started getting to know each other.
“I gotta go,” I say abruptly, pushing off the wall and past her, determined to leave it at this and to leave her alone. I’m on my way down the stairs, but can’t resist one look back. Lotus still stands in the same spot, facing away from me, her back a stiff line, one arm around the bolt of cloth and a hand on her hip.
I’m a jackass.
I rush back to the landing above and stand behind her, looping an arm around her waist. She jerks against my hold, but I don’t let go.
“Hey.” I expel a long breath, stirring the curls arrowing wildly into my face.
“I’m sorry.”
She whirls around to face me, shaking my arm from her waist.
“For what? Acting like we don’t know each other?” Anger snaps in her voice, but I hear the hurt. I put it there. “I don’t think we’ve fucked yet, so it’s a little odd that you’re already treating me like yesterday’s trash.”
“I was abrupt. It’s my fault, not yours.”
“Oh, I know that,” she says, her words as hot as the summer outside these air-conditioned walls. “But it’s okay. You do you and I’ll do me. Is that simple enough for you, friend?”
“Can I please explain?”
“No.” She grabs the cloth and marches toward the next landing of stairs.
I take the bolt from under her arm and toss it against the wall. Grasping her wrist gently, conscious of the fine bones in my big hands, I lean against the wall and pull her to stand between my legs.
“I’m sorry.” I push a clump of curls back, exposing the gold studs running along the whorl of her ear. “May I please explain that I’m a dumbass?”
She stills, but doesn’t pull away.
“I didn’t have to come to the office today,” I admit, my voice quiet in the privacy of the stairwell.
She flicks a look up at me from under her lashes, curious and cautious.
“JP mentioned prototypes of the watches, and I offered to come see them in person.” I laugh at myself and shake my head. “I jumped at the chance to see you.”
She fixes her stare on the ground between our feet. Her shoulders, held tight and high, slowly drop. She’s listening. She’s hearing me.
“Go on,” she says, full lips pinching at the corners. “Dumbass.”
Her spirit, her boldness, makes me smile. I don’t like seeing her hurt, especially by me. If we don’t have this conversation, these same doubts will resurface, and I’ll inevitably hurt her again. She won’t even know why. She deserves to know why.
“Tell me what you know about me, Lotus.”
Both of her thick brows stretch up, and she blinks a few times.
“I know you’re the center for the San Diego Waves,” she says, her voice slightly uncertain.
“Power forward,” I correct.
“Huh?” She tosses up a confused glance.
“You said I’m the center for the Waves, but I’m the power forward.”
“Oh.” She shrugs like it’s all the same to her . . . which it probably is. “And I know you have the musical taste of a sixty-year-old man.”
I laugh and fake a glare. “That’s actually not too far off,” I tell her, stroking the silky skin of her wrist. “My father loved jazz, and he passed that on to me.”
“Is he a basketball player, too?”
“No.” I shake my head and let out a harsh laugh. “He was a judge and wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He was disappointed when I was drafted.”
“No way. Most fathers would be proud.”
“Yeah, my dad wasn’t exactly most fathers.” I smile, reminiscing about the man who shaped me more than any other. “When I told him I was planning to enter the draft instead of going to law school, he said ‘a tall, black man playing basketball. Wow, didn’t see that coming.’”
She doesn’t laugh like I expected her to. Instead she searches my face, looking for something. “Did that hurt?” she asks.
“Hurt? Hell, no. My father and I were best friends. I may have taken a different path than he expected, but he recognized that not many get the chance to play at this level—to make this kind of money. He came around and supported me. I don’t have childhood trauma. No daddy issues, or mommy issues for that matter. My parents were married forty years. We were well-off, well-adjusted.”
“Must be nice,” she says, her expression, her voice wistful. “Especially the closeness you have with your dad.”
“It was nice.” Our eyes meet, hers filling with sympathy even before I clarify. “He passed away last year.”
“I’m sorry, Kenan.” She flips the wrists I’m holding so that her hands are holding mine, and squeezes. I nod and squeeze back.
“He, uh . . . advised me against marrying my ex-wife, Bridget,” I say, feeling out the best way to approach this subject. “Do you know much about my marriage? What have you heard?”
“Just that it’s over. You told me that. Remember? I don’t really follow basketball.” She frowns. “Is there something I should know?”
When Bridget cheated with my teammate Cliff, it felt like the whole world knew, and yet I’m dreading telling this one woman the ugly facts.
“A simple Google search could tell you all the dirty details,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “The shit I hate most would come up first.”
“I haven’t done a Google search on you,” she says. “It didn’t feel right.” She looks embarrassed, but has no idea how much she just pleased me.
“Don’t google me. Anything you want to know, ask.
I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Okay.” She pulls her hands free of mine and looks up at me boldly. “Then tell me why you acted that way when I bumped into you.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was getting around to,” I say wryly.
She folds slim arms under her breasts and waits.
“My ex-wife cheated on me with one of my friends. With a teammate.”
Shock rounds her full lips into an O, and her arms fall limply to her sides. “With your teammate,” she repeats faintly.
“Yes, they were caught in a hotel. Turns out a reporter discovered it and had been following them, so he had photographic evidence. All of which he released to the highest bidder. It was on TMZ, ESPN, all the blogs. Everyone knew.”
“How could she?” Lotus asks, her brows drawn into an angry dip. “What’d she do when it came out?”
“Well there was no denying it. The photographs were all the evidence needed.” Displeasure twists my lips. “Not to mention the gracious friends and distant relatives who gave interviews and shared information.”
“Oh, Kenan. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s behind me now, but I . . .” I take her hands in mine again. “I told myself I’d never be made a fool of that way again. When I was in your office today, I felt foolish—like I was the butt of some joke. Like everyone knew how much I . . .”
My words fade, but we look at each other and know, even though we don’t say it. We both know how much I like her. How much I want her.
“Anyway,” I continue. “I started thinking has she been talking about us? Would she talk to the press, too?”
“What?” She releases an affronted gasp. “I would never do that.”
“I believe you. I do,” I reassure her. “It’s just I have to be so careful who I let into my life, because that affects my daughter. And she heard and knew too much too soon because our shit was everywhere. She’s my whole life, and I have to protect her.”
If anything, the look on her face is intent, understanding. “She’s very lucky to have someone who puts her first,” Lotus says.
One side of my mouth kicks into a grin that mocks me. “I felt like a national joke and today . . . I don’t know. I let my thoughts run and started drawing parallels that weren’t there. I took it out on you.”